Physical beacon transmitters are used to transmit signals which can be used to communicate identifiers and/or information. A device receiving a beacon signal can use the information in the received beacon signal for a variety of purposes.
In devices which receive beacon signals, receipt of a beacon signal may be reported to a module or application which then processes the beacon signal to obtain information and/or take some form of action. The received signal strength of the beacon signal may be reported to the application or module responsible for taking some action. Thus, devices, applications or modules which are designed to use beacon signals often include interfaces designed to receive and process received beacon signal information, e.g., information normally provided by a receiver or other device component which receives and/or processes a beacon signal and then provides at least some information about the received beacon signal to the beacon interface.
Given the growing use of beacon signals, many devices and/or applications are designed to take advantage of received beacon signals and the information reported in them.
It would be desirable if a wireless terminal could be able to take advantage of devices, modules or other components which are intended to provide information in regard to received beacon signals even when beacon signals are not in fact received and/or the device seeking information lacks the ability such as a wireless receiver, capable of receiving a transmitted beacon signal. It would also be desirable if an entity seeking to communicate information could take advantage of devices, modules or components intended to supply information in response to an indication that a beacon signal was received, without having to deploy an actual beacon transmitter in at least some cases.
Physical beacon signals may be transmitted by individual devices such as wireless access points, base stations, etc. The placement, moves and maintenance of physical beacon transmitters can be costly to deploy, expensive to maintain and in the case of at least some transmitters, difficult to move. In addition it can be difficult to change the transmit power and/or other physical characteristics of a physical transmitter given that some changes might require physical movement and/or changes to a beacon transmitter.
In view of the above discussion, it should be appreciated that there is a need for methods and/or apparatus which allow devices to communicate or receive information as if a beacon signal were transmitted and/or received even when a beacon signal is not actually transmitted or received. It should be appreciated that there is a need for methods and/or apparatus which would allow a device's ability to process and use beacon signal information without one or more of the problems associated with maintaining, moving and/or modifying physical beacon transmitters.